Without Rondo and the stocky Sullinger, the Celtics became a different defensive team. Their offense had been struggling for a while now, but at least with Rondo they had someone who could find them a shot in a halfcourt set. And Sullinger was good acquiring something-out-of-nothing points under the hoop.

And when the Celts suffered at one end of the floor, the trouble didn’t stop at the midcourt line.

“I think every team has some kind of identity,” Ainge said. “All of our teams have been one of the top one, two or three defenses in the league the last six years, and for a stretch this year we were. For a stretch this year we were playing the second-best defense in the league — for a 20- to 30-game stretch. But I think that when we lost Sullinger and then we had struggles scoring, we have tried to find scoring at the expense of rebounding and defense. We tried to see if we could do it that way, and it hasn’t worked.”